A study on the development of an XML-based e-book authoring system

Abstract

Electronic books or e-books offer many definite advantages over the printed books, such as the convenience, mobility and flexibility of accesses and the incorporation of multimedia elements into the book contents. For e-books, an authoring system is essentially required, not only on content development but also on the subsequent revisions and updates. Ideally, the system should be easy to use and support a variety of multimedia, while adopting some structure and formatting standards so that the e-books can be accessible across different operating systems and platforms. This paper investigates the use of XML as the standards for e-book contents. It is found that using XML to develop e-books is technically feasible, and that the e-book structure and formatting styles can be effectively enforced through XML schema. The developed e-book contents can be readily deployed in different online platforms and devices. Our experience in developing an XML-based e-book authoring system is shared in this paper.